At this rate, between North Korea, Charlottesville and the climate crisis, it's unclear if America can survive being too much "greater", as the political cartoonists in PDiddie's latest weekly collection illustrate...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Europe grapples with relentless heat wave, nicknamed 'Lucifer'; Flash drought causing crop failures in the Great Plains; Trump's Department of Agriculture nixes phrase 'climate change'; PLUS: The electric utility industry knew about global warming in 1968, but chose to lie about it and build more coal plants anyway... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Elections have consequences: Trump executive order to begin ripping up Obama's climate legacy; Not so fast - Trump approves Keystone XL Pipeline, but Nebraska gets final say; North Dakota pipeline spill three times larger than original estimate; PLUS: Maryland state legislature and Republican Governor approve permanent ban on fracking... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Guest: Frank Schaeffer on what Dems must do to win again; Also: U.S. civilian massacres explode in Middle East; NC paying high price for anti-LGBT law; ND pipeline leak much worse than previously known...

On today's BradCast, a former evangelical Christian who, after decades of participating in the political rightwing anti-abortion con has since seen the light, joins us to explain what Democrats need to do in order to encourage his "brainwashed" former followers to realize they've been scammed by Donald Trump. [Audio link to show at end of article.]

But first up today, U.S. officials admit some 200 Iraqi civilians in Mosul may have been killed during a U.S. bombing campaign last week, in what has become a startling and savage escalation in the so-called "War on Terror" since Trump has taken office. While the Obama Administration had carried out similar campaigns, the increase in indiscriminate lethality by the new President's campaigns in Iraq, Syria and Yemen is both alarming and vastly underreported or downplayed by U.S. media --- not to mention, counter-productive in the so-called "War on Terror".

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the GOP's anti-LGBT "bathroom bill" is costing the state economy thousands of jobs and billions of dollars, according to a new analysis by the Associated Press. That, even as Republicans in other states, like Texas, are quickly moving to enact similarly "conservative" anti-LGBT laws in their own state.

Then, as Trump's approval rating continues to plummet to record lows, even his numbers among his own base of supporters --- white, male Republicans --- are beginning to erode. Still, overall support for the President remains high among Republicans as a whole, for now.

AuthorFrank Schaeffer, who formerly spent decades along with his father, theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer, creating (and profiting from) the far right anti-abortion political movement, joins us to discuss how he believes Democrats can win back both the White House and Congress, from the perspective of someone who, for many years, had preyed on the fears and false facts favored by rightwing, so-called "values voters". You can't convince them of facts, a fired-up Schaeffer tells me today, but you can drop a lit metaphorical match into their gas tanks by helping them understand how Trump himself has "betrayed them."

"The over-arching bloc of people without whom [Trump] could not have been elected are white evangelicals, and that's my stomping ground." Schaeffer explains. "This was all before I left the evangelical world and changed sides both, you might say, theologically and politically. When it comes to understanding the brain of the evangelical movement, I know what I'm talking about. From birth, people raised in the fundamentalist subculture are taught to mistrust, distrust, renounce so-called 'world facts'. So, when science says that evolution proves something, or that the Earth is very old, or there wasn't a Noah's ark, you are taught from birth they are lying. We have our own facts. We have our own truth. That truth is in the Bible and our denomination's interpretation of it."

You can't convince these folks with facts alone that they are wrong, he argues, but you can help them see how they have been scammed. "If you come up with a fact-based argument, people's eyes in the evangelical world just glaze over, and instead of talking to you about the issue or the facts, all you get back is this stream-of-consciousness which is really more of a Pavlovian reaction and brain-washing," he says. "So, [Trump] had a built-in audience that liked what he was saying just because he's giving the finger to the established order of science, university teaching, learning --- and all those other things that so-called 'secular' people live by."

"That group of people is going to be looking at what he's doing to them when they lose healthcare," Shaeffer, whose latest book is Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God, observes. "They're going to be looking at the fact that in that new budget of his, Meals on Wheels doesn't show up for their grandma anymore on that farm in Omaha. They're going to see one tweak too many ... That drip-drip-drip-drip of actual evidence in their own lives --- not reason, not argument --- but things going wrong because he is a fool, he is a charlatan, he is a faker, he is a fraud. In other words, when they wake up in the position your average Trump University student woke up in, finding their degree was worthless, they are going to simply start losing faith."

But will they? Haven't these same folks fallen for the same con many times in the past? Schaeffer, who worked with past Republican Presidents, responds to that question, and many others today in a lively (and angry) dressing down of both Trump and his supporters, who, Schaeffer insists, he still knows all too well.

Finally today, a pro-Trump demonstration in California over the weekend ends with a counter-demonstrator being repeatedly beaten with a "Make American Great Again" sign, and the pipeline oil spill reported last December in North Dakota, not far from the site of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, turns out to have been at least three time larger than originally reported...

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: California dodges a bullet --- for the moment --- at Oroville Dam; U.S. not prepared for climate impacts on infrastructure; Judge rejects tribe's request to halt Dakota Access Pipeline construction; PLUS: Extreme heat waves brings extreme fire danger to Australia... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Standing Rock Sioux tribe vows to keep fighting against Dakota Access Pipeline; New study finds owners of the pipeline reported 69 spills in the last 2 years; Air pollution linked to increased risk of dementia; More Americans now work in solar jobs than in coal jobs; PLUS: Sweden votes to go zero emissions by 2050... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): House Science Committee Hearing Renews Battle of Science Vs. Denial; Reality finally sets in for the media: Trump's presidency will be a disaster for the climate; At least 7 tornadoes touch down in Louisiana, state of emergency declared; Conservation success: Canary rockfish no longer considered overfished; Scientists are figuring out how to lower L.A.'s temperture; The state of residential solar power; 'Whistleblower' says protocol was breached but no data fraud... PLUS: U.S. utilities seek solar power as Trump sides with coal, fossil fuels... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court not a big fan of federal agencies; Former ExxonMobil CEO now in charge of U.S. diplomacy; Trump's controversial EPA nominee muscled through GOP Senate Committee; PLUS: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe gears up for another court battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: It begins: Trump re-launches controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines; Team Trump imposes gag orders and lock downs on science-based federal agencies; PLUS: New U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations won't commit to supporting United Nations Paris Agreement... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump's unsupported claim he has 'received awards on the environment'; Lead Levels Fall Below Federal Limits In Flint, Michigan: State; Iowa Oil Spill Marks Pipeline Risks After Trump Revives Major Projects; In Michigan, a Fight Over the Future of a Fabled Trout River; Senate Democrats Unveil A Trump-Size Infrastructure Plan; Fla. DEP Secretary Going To Work For Firm That Just Got New DEP Contract; This Week's Jersey Floods Are A Taste Of What's To Come... PLUS: Gag Order Or Not, Here's Why Trump Cracking Down On Government Science is So Scary... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, our coverage of what suffices in the U.S. as a Presidential election "recount" continues, in no small part, because someone has to cover what is actually going on there. [Audio link to show posted below.]

A federal court ruling [PDF] issued late yesterday in Michigan has effectively stopped the counting of paper ballots in the state following an earlier 3-Republican judge state court ruling that Green Party candidate Jill Stein is not an "aggrieved candidate" and, thus, not entitled to any type of "recount". Moreover, U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith finds there is no federally recognized right to a "recount" and, in any case, Stein presented no "evidence of significant fraud or mistake" while asking for one. But, of course, how could she, without being allowed to examine the evidence in question? State Republicans described the suspension of ballot counting as "a victory for the taxpayers and voters of Michigan."

That, even as scores of precincts across the state --- hundreds in Detroit alone --- were deemed "unrecountable" by election officials under MI's horrible statutes disallowing the hand-count of votes when human error or computer vote tabulator failure leaves Election Night ballot totals off by as little as a single ballot, as compared to the number of names signed in to pollbooks. Even in just three days of counting before it's suspension today, many such precincts were found to be "unrecountable", despite totally unreconciled vote tallies.

"It is an outrage that the voters of Michigan are being denied their right to have their votes properly counted," rails longtime election integrity advocate and attorney John Bonifaz, one of those who initially argued to both Hillary Clinton and Stein that a post-election count was necessary. "Because of a partisan state appeals court decision, Americans will never know the truth about what happened in this election."

Bonifaz was joined by many longtime computer science and voting systems experts, such as Douglas Jones of the University Iowa, who warns today: "In a healthy democracy, elections are run with sufficient transparency that partisans of the losing candidate can convince themselves that they lost fair and square. Recounts in close elections are a necessary part of this transparency, particularly when the margin of victory is exceeded by an unusual number of ballots that were cast without reporting any vote in the election." Jones is referring to the 75,000 ballots in MI said to have no vote for President at all, nearly twice as many undervotes as reported in 2012, despite a 10,000 vote margin between Trump and Clinton in MI, where some 5 million votes were cast. That case is headed to MI's Supreme Court, where Stein is demanding two state Justices recuse themselves after being named by Donald Trump as potentially U.S. Supreme Court nominees.

In Pennsylvania, a similar, if even worse case of lacking "evidence" of fraud has served to block forensic analyses of the otherwise 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting and tabulation systems used across most of the state. Late Wednesday, Stein filed a new court challenge in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), seeking the type of examination that computer science and voting systems experts have been desperately calling for. A similar challenge was rejected yesterday in Philadelphia for...you guessed it...lack of evidence of fraud.

And in Wisconsin, observers of the ongoing counts and retallies are calling for a federal suit --- which, I'm told, could be filed on Friday --- seeking a statewide hand-count of paper ballots, after a state court previously found a new law passed by Republicans last year allowed most of the largest (and Democratic-leaning) counties to "recount" by the same computer scanners that initially tallied votes (either correctly or incorrectly). The computer tallies, and a number of other concerns revealed to date, have led some of those observers to describe the current process as a "farce", and declare: "The most urgent issue in America right now is to be able to confirm that every vote was counted fairly, accurately, and honestly, and if not, for patriotic Americans to raise bloody hell about it."

And so, we do. Even as the corporate media continue to misreport or ignore altogether what is actually going on in all three longtime "blue" states where just 3 votes per precinct recorded for Clinton instead of Trump would have meant that she, not he, would be considered the President Elect right now. Citizen oversight of election results matter. As simple as that should be, the struggle to achieve any such post-election oversight or verification, in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, is astounding and an outrage.

Also today, speaking of outrages and science ignored by corporate media and elected officials alike: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on Trump's shocking choice to head the EPA, on another oil pipeline rupture --- this time not far from the contested Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota --- and temperatures in the Arctic are now from 35 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit warmer today than they normally are this time of year...

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Donald Trump picks climate science denier and fossil fuel industry tool to head EPA; Weather Channel smacks back at climate denial propaganda; It's official: sea ice at both poles falls to stunning record lows; PLUS: Another oil pipeline spill - this time in North Dakota - not far from the Dakota Access Pipeline... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Memo Outlines Planet-Killing GOP Energy Policy; More on Trump's Catastrophic Plan to Gut NASA's Earth Science; While Eyes Were On Standing Rock, The Dakota Pipeline Was Being Drilled Under Another Water Source; The Perfect Tide - Sea Level and the Future of South Florida; This fall was the warmest on record, 2016 will be at least second-warmest year; Trump AG Pick Introduced First Bill Exempting Fracking from Water Regulations; Soon-To-Expire Health Benefits For Coal Miners Are At The Center Of The Government Funding Fight; Nuclear plant 'overwhelmed' say inspectors... PLUS: Rapid Arctic ice melt sets the stage for economic disaster under Trump... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Victory and temporary reprieve for the Standing Rock Sioux in long fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline; Trump advisors suggest privatizing oil-rich Native American lands; Exxon Mobil CEO could be next U.S. Secretary of State; Extreme rainfall events projected to increase five-fold across the U.S.; PLUS: Enormous cost of cleaning up Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster has doubled... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

On today's BradCast, we cover an enormous amount of news, breaking and otherwise, on both the Presidential "recount" story in three different states, as well as the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. And we speak to Green Party candidate Jill Stein's campaign manager, David Cobb, about the ongoing and "escalating" legal battles and fights for citizen oversight of election results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. [Audio link to show posted at bottom of article.]

First today, the latest on the breaking news over the weekend in the story of the denial of a permit for the controversial pipeline in ND, where thousands of native Americans have been protesting for months against its construction near tribal lands. On Sunday, in a huge victory, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement to Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners that would have allowed them to complete the pipeline by building on disputed land near and beneath Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux's source of drinking water. The victory, while monumental --- even as the protests and violent attempts by law enforcement to stop them have been almost entirely ignored by mainstream corporate media --- may be short-lived, depending on legal actions and decisions made by the next President. Desi Doyen joins us for the latest.

At the same time, over the weekend, the corporate media was busy misreporting and misleading the legal maneuvers of Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein, who has dropped just one of the statewide voter-initiated suits demanding a PA "recount", in favor of a federal filing [PDF] today, on Constitutional grounds, seeking federal intervention for a statewide count and forensic analysis of 100% unverifiable voting systems used there. Stein and her attorneys held a press conference and rally today outside of Trump Tower in Manhattan, to explain the efforts.

Also, a federal judge this morning ordered [PDF] the state of Michigan to being counting ballots today, after successful maneuvers by Team Trump delayed the start of that effort late last week and had hoped to further delay or deny citizen oversight of results entirely. MI's Attorney General (a Trump supporter) falsely argued in his filing and during an unusual emergency hearing in federal court on Sunday, that the count might endanger the state's Electoral College votes. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith ordered the counting to begin at noon today, however, finding that any further delay "would likely violate [plaintiffs'] right to vote under the First and Fourteenth Amendments" and that "there is a credible threat to the voters' right to have a determination made that Michigan's vote for president was properly tabulated." The MI GOP has vowed to appeal both the federal and state cases against counting ballots.

My guest today, Stein's campaign manager David Cobb, the Party's 2004 Presidential nominee --- who, himself, called for the partial statewide count that happened after that year's Presidential contest in Ohio --- joins us to discuss the latest developments in the ongoing counts and court cases in all three states, and to explain why Stein and the Green Party "are demanding integrity in the election system."

In PA, he explains (as we long have as well), that "there is no way to properly verify the DRE --- direct recording electronic --- equipment, otherwise correctly known as 'black box voting'. It's terrible to begin with and they should never be used. ... The real gain here is forensic experts getting an opportunity to get their hands on these machines --- and that is exactly what we are seeking in all three states --- but, in Pennsylvania, in federal court specifically, because of the completely outrageous system of recount provisions in the state." (To get an idea how horrific they are, check out my interview with VotePA's Marybeth Kuznik from last week, or read today's filing [PDF] in federal court.)

"I really want to underscore," he tells me, "we are escalating the fight into federal court in Pennsylvania precisely because the Pennsylvania laws are so horrible."

"These black box voting machines are hackable," he continues. "If any nefarious individual can get their hands on them, there are ways to manipulate them. That's the reason it's so important to have these forensic studies done. So that we can literally verify the vote. What is Donald Trump afraid of?"

We also discuss the efforts of the Green Party going back to Cobb's own attempted "recount" in Ohio, when two top election officials in the state's largest county, Cuyahoga (Cleveland), were found guilty and sentenced to the maximum sentence in prison for having rigged the 2004 Presidential "recount".

"We are demanding that every vote counts, so count every vote! It's just that simple. At the end of the day, if we do not have confidence in the election system, we cannot have confidence in our government itself," he argues.

Finally, speaking of counting votes (or not), North Carolina's abhorrent Republican Gov. Pat McCory has announced he is giving up his own battle for a statewide recount (which we supported) and has conceded the race to the state's Democratic candidate Attorney General Roy Cooper, becoming the first Governor to lose a re-election bid in state history...

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues eviction notice to Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp; U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigating third oil refinery fire in two days; Extreme water shortages caused by drought trigger state of emergency in Bolivia; Major coral die-off along northern Great Barrier Reef; Developing nations pledge to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2050; PLUS: Federal judge rules a stable climate is a constitutional right... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): I Told The New York Times: "It's time for a whole new approach to climate journalism!"; Tennessee: Drought and high winds fuel 'apocalyptic' wildfire; Bloomberg: Cities will fight climate change, with or without Trump; Chilling climate revelations from the last ice age; White House Releases Wishful Climate Change Plan Before Trump Takes Office; Antarctica: Rift in Pine Island Glacier points to a coming, broader collapse... PLUS: A Portrait of a Man Who Knows Nothing About Climate Change... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bernie Sanders finds a potential new way to block the Dakota Access Pipeline; Republican Senate Majority Leader admits U.S. coal jobs may not be coming back; Mercury contamination in fish is declining --- thanks to pollution regulations; October 2016 was not the hottest October on record; PLUS: U.S. climate negotiators say climate action is unstoppable, even in the Age of Trump... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama suggests re-routing the controversial Dakota Access pipeline; Some major --- and some tricky --- environment-related ballot measures; China's top climate official warns Trump about climate science denial; PLUS: Corporate media covered Clinton emails 25 times more than climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): World On Track For 3C Of Warming Under Current Pledges, Warns UNEP; Oil prices slide 3 percent on record U.S. crude stock build; Global carbon intensity falls, on declining coal use; Oil patch states may have seen the last boom; Is Coal’s Political Heft Plunging? One State May Be Canary in Mine; Hurricane Matthew Took A Big Bite Out Of Southeastern States' Beaches... PLUS: Bad News for Honey as U.S. Seeks Handle on Glyphosate Residues in Food... and much, MUCH more! ...